


how do you say 'kiss me' in flower language?

by e_keshet



Series: a garden of florist au's [1]
Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 22:53:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19485667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_keshet/pseuds/e_keshet
Summary: Grizz works at a flower shop, and there's this cute guy that keeps coming back for more flowers than anyone should really need.





	how do you say 'kiss me' in flower language?

**Author's Note:**

> a requested florist au! i will probably write a different florist au for becca and kelly at some point too and just make this a series of florist au's.

“Grizz.” His boss comes up behind him suddenly, and he drops the corsage he’s making. She sighs a little. He pretends he doesn’t notice. He’s been working as an assistant at _Susie’s Floral Arrangements_ since he moved to this town for college in freshman year, and he’s been doing an objectively good job, but Susie still seems to think he’s a bit slow in the head. 

“Yes?” he asks, fixing the corsage. 

“I need to leave to run some errands, I need you to cover the front desk until we close. Just an hour.”

Dammit. He hates the front desk. That involves _talking_ to _people_ , sometimes on the _phone._ And they never knew what they wanted and they thought everything was too expensive and-

“Grizz?”

He realizes he never responded. “Right, yes, ma’am,” he says, putting the corsage in a cooler with a selection of other corsages. “I got it covered, drive safe.” 

She gives him a weird look, but throws him the keys and leaves without saying anything else.

He takes his place behind the counter, mentally willing passersby to suddenly hate flowers and stay far away. It’s just his luck that, of course, people love flowers. Three people come in and purchased premade bouquets, which is at least better than custom ones. He loves to _make_ custom bouquets, but taking the actual orders is too much of an ordeal. 

Thirty minutes to closing… 

And someone else comes in, the little bell jingling as the door opens. Which almost makes him lose his mind, except that this new customer is _cute._

It’s a young man who he’s never met before, and he looks about the same age as him. Maybe they go to the same school. Officially a junior in college, Grizz is now allowed to freely think of other men as attractive, and he’s taking full advantage of that privilege. 

But all the cuteness in the world can barely make up for the fact that the guy looks around and then almost immediately comes to the front desk without anything in hand. Meaning Grizz has to _speak,_ a terrible consequence of existing in the world. 

“Are you finding everything okay?” he asks, putting on his perky customer service voice. Now that the man is closer, Grizz notices that he has really beautiful blue eyes, which he can’t focus on right now because he is _working_. 

“I want to get a bouquet for my mom’s birthday,” the guy starts. He has something going on with his voice. “I don’t speak very well, sorry, I’m deaf,” he continues.

“Oh, no, you speak fine!” Which is true, since Grizz can understand him, but now he feels kinda guilty for thinking his voice was weird. He makes sure to speak slower when he talks again, because he must be reading his lips. “Would you like to make a custom order?”

“Her favorites are sunflowers, but she loves blue, so if I can get something blue with sunflowers…?”

Grizz nods. Delphiniums go _great_ with sunflowers. “I can make that right now, if you want. What’s your budget?” 

The man glances around the store like it’ll tell him. “Forty? I heard they’re pretty expensive.”

“That will get you a smaller bouquet, no vase, but I can fluff it up with some greens so it looks nice,” he says. He points to one of the premades on display. “Kinda like that.”

“That’d be great.” He looks relieved. 

Grizz realizes he’s leaning _way_ across the counter towards the guy for no reason, and steps back self-consciously. “I’ll get that made for you real quick,” he says, starting to go to the back room, and then something comes to mind. 

“Can I get a name for the order?” He doesn’t actually need it, since he’s making the order now and not delivering it, but maybe he just wants to know the cute guy’s name. Sue him.

“Sam Eliot,” the man says. 

“Nice to meet you, Sam.” His customer service voice is slipping. He sounds like a genuine person. Is that allowed? 

Sam peers at his name tag. “Nice to meet you, Gareth.”

“Call me Grizz,” he says, like an unprofessional fool.

“Grizz,” Sam echoes, smiling. He has a really cute smile, and a cute laugh when Grizz trips over his own feet while he’s distracted by that cute smile.

In the back room, he organizes a few sunflowers and blue delphiniums in a paper bouquet sleeve, padded by myrtle and ferns to fill it out. It comes out to be worth exactly $38, perfect. 

Sam thanks him and pays for it, and he escapes Grizz’s mind a few days later like many other cute guys he’s crossed paths with. 

***

“You can’t keep doing this.”

By all accounts, Grizz is minding his own business, so he doesn’t know his roommate has found a problem with that. 

“Existing?” he asks, taking another bite of his cookie dough ice cream. 

“No,” Allie says, “This.” And then gestures vaguely to all of him. He can’t figure out what she’s trying to say. He’s curled up on the couch in a blanket, chilling with some ice cream, and rewatching _Stranger Things._ Seems normal to him. 

“I don’t follow,” he says. 

“Moping around! You haven’t had, like, a date or a hookup or anything in how long?”

“Um, ow?.” A guy really can’t just eat ice cream in peace, huh? 

“Ever since that dumbass soccer player man-whore broke up with you like, four months ago, you’ve been holed up in here like a hermit and you’re not putting yourself out there anymore,” she says. “I’m just trying to help you out, man.” 

Despite that she’s ruthlessly attacking Grizz as well, hearing Allie call his ex “the dumbass soccer player man-whore”, brings a smile to his face. It’s been her favorite nickname for Brian since that breakup four months ago.

“So what do you suggest, oh love guru?” he says, pausing Netflix to give his full attention to the advice he will not listen to at all. 

“Well, young grasshopper, I suggest talking to guys again and doing something more exciting with your weekend than... this.” She flicks at his blanket with disdain. “Even if _Stranger Things_ is amazing.”

“Yep, I’ll get right on that,” he says, resuming Netflix. 

She rolls her eyes but still forces her way under his arm in a weird way of cuddling that restricts his access to his ice cream, a real travesty, just to prove that she isn’t _actually_ disappointed in him for not man-whoring it up as much as Brian after the breakup. 

As much as he hates to admit it, though, she’s a little right. He just doesn’t really know how to start again. 

***

In the next few weeks, that cute guy, Sam, starts coming to the shop with regularity that is rivaled only by men on the edge of divorce. Grizz reasonably assumes that he’s trying to woo someone. Trying _very_ hard, like throwing enough small bouquets at someone will eventually overpower their defenses. Though he doesn’t know why anyone with the chance to get with Sam wouldn’t jump at that, so maybe he’s in a relationship and just very giving.

Every time, without fail, he has to come to the front desk to ask something, usually about the _meaning_ of the flowers in the cheap bouquet he’s picked out. Grizz has been told that the meaning of the flowers always comes second to how they look, but the concept of flower language was always so appealing to him, so he answers Sam’s questions truthfully anyway. 

“Are these lilies?” Sam asks one day. He’s already paid for the bouquet, so Grizz doubts he actually cares.

“They’re alstroemerias,” Grizz says. “Beloved by people who want lilies but want to keep their money more,” he adds, trying to get a laugh out of the cute guy, even if he’s taken. 

He succeeds. A small laugh. 

“Alstroemeria?” he echoes. Grizz nods. “That’s a mouthful.” Then he gives a coy smile that Grizz doesn’t really know how to interpret except that it was after the word _mouthful_ and, oh, that’s probably flirting. 

“See you around, Grizz,” Sam says. 

“See you around,” he says. He’s glad Sam can’t hear how high his voice got. 

***

He goes home and immediately finds Allie. 

“Allie.”

“Grizz,” she says, rolling over in her bed to face him. “I am trying to take a nap.”

“But listen, you’re gonna be proud of me. This cute guy comes to the flower shop all the time and I think he was flirting with me today,” he says. 

She perks up a little. “Did you flirt back?”

“Well, no, but-” Allie groans and turns back over - “But I will next time, I swear.”

“You better,” she says. It sounds like a threat. 

***

Sam comes in the shop again the next week. Grizz is out from behind the desk for once, arranging some basic bouquets he just made into the display. 

He looks up and realizes it’s him. “Welcome back,” he says. 

Sam fiddles with a bouquet of sunflowers and baby’s breath. “Hey.”

“Any new questions about flower meanings, or have you exhausted all the options we have?” He steps a little closer to Sam than necessary, but not close enough to jeopardize his job if he’s reading this wrong. 

Then Sam steps closer too, so he has to look up a bit to see Grizz’s face. 

“Are there any flowers that mean ‘kiss me’?”

Alright, so, this is definitely flirting. 

“Probably mistletoe.” Except, he’s bad at flirting.

“Do you have that here?” He cocks his head to the side.

“In May? Nah, is there anything else I can get for you?” Why is he so bad at this? “A phone number, maybe?”

“You could probably kiss me to make up for it.”

Susie isn’t here, so fuck it. He leans in, Sam rising up on his toes to meet him. It’s as great as he expected, Sam’s hands on his waist and his hands on Sam’s face. His chapstick tastes like peppermint and his cologne smells heavenly. He kind of doesn't want to stop kissing him, ever, but Sam pulls away eventually.

“I’ll take that phone number, too, if you don’t mind,” Sam says, a small grin on his face. His hands are still on Grizz’s waist for a bit after he pulls away. Then those are gone too, unfortunately.

“Of course,” he says, punching his number into the unlocked phone Sam has put in his hand. He makes his contact name _your favorite bear._ “If you promise to text it.”

“Yeah, I might even buy you some flowers.” It makes Grizz laugh even if it isn’t very funny. He’s still a little high off that kiss. 

“Right. I’ll see you around, then,” he says, since Sam is inching towards the door. It comes out sounding like a question.

Sam smiles. “See you around.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! please leave a kudos and maybe a comment if you'd like!  
> for more of my writing and and more Grizz and Sam, check out my other work called Sleep on the Floor :)


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